You strumpet!
My family struggles to open up about sex, which is why I appreciated it when my brother stepped bravely into the amphitheater. I enjoyed the heck out of his essay. It's a perfect read for the people who love him in all senses of the word love. I myself have a few strong opinions, and I basically copy him on half the stuff he does anyway, so to quote him, "Here's my thoughts on the topic."
You know what? I'm annoyed at the concept of virginity in the first place. Me, I don't like getting legalistic about what counts as sex, let alone bugging people about whether or not they've had it. I mean, first off, some people are other-abled or whatever, and I want them to be able to define for themselves what sex is. But more to the point, I'm concerned that getting legalistic about sex will cause us to repeat some mistakes of the religious past and miss the point. For starters, our sex drives literally plug us into one another. Now, do you necessarily need sex for that? Heck no! Can you capitalize on your sex drive to form human connections? Heck yeah! What does that look like? Well, humans are adaptable. They specialize. They're creative. That all gets expressed through sex, and that's beautiful. Since it depends entirely on the human, I'd rather not plant ideas in people's heads about what is and isn't sex, or what genres of sex are sinful, or what configurations are gross or doomed to failure or blah blah blah. And listen, sure sure, don't get me wrong, there are practical considerations. Sex certainly comes with risks, and requires judicious and educated use of safety devices and techniques, just like anything that exciting. But getting moralistic or legalistic about it doesn't strike me as particularly helpful. This brings me around to a big insight I had last year, but first some back story.
What else. My brother points out that nobody ever owes you sex, and boy do I agree with that. I like to come to that same conclusion from a different angle. If I walk into a room with 100 women roughly my age, I'm just making these numbers up, but about 5 will be into me. And I've learned a little something. The best sex in the world is with somebody who is genuinely excited to have it with you. I love this idea of enthusiastic consent. Silence isn't yes, and yes isn't heck yes! To my mind, the worst strategy is to walk into that room and hit on women in descending order of how hot I think they are. The best strategy is to flirt a lot and pay attention to which girls are sending signals. Start with the cute ones making eye contact, laughing at my jokes, opening up, and showing focused interest.
Women are complicated though in a very interesting way, and this is one of the only gender differences I hypothesize truly exists. Women will go back and forth in their heads about whether they want to have sex with you, even past the point of penetration. So she might say no at any point in the process, which can be surprising and frustrating, but that's all part of it.
So yeah, morally, nobody owes me sex, but also, reading and respecting whether or not she wants me is just good technique. Side note, pet theory, I think this is an easy thing to get wrong in the marriage model. I could see where promising never to bonk another might make you feel entitled. But another interesting thing that falls out of my model is, if you really want to have sex and you have a decent sized dating pool and you're willing to learn and adapt and approach it with an open mind that's not too hung up on ideas of what romance has to look like or one specific person (catches breath), you can absolutely find somebody. Isn't that freeing and terrifying? Welcome to humans.
You know what? I'm annoyed at the concept of virginity in the first place. Me, I don't like getting legalistic about what counts as sex, let alone bugging people about whether or not they've had it. I mean, first off, some people are other-abled or whatever, and I want them to be able to define for themselves what sex is. But more to the point, I'm concerned that getting legalistic about sex will cause us to repeat some mistakes of the religious past and miss the point. For starters, our sex drives literally plug us into one another. Now, do you necessarily need sex for that? Heck no! Can you capitalize on your sex drive to form human connections? Heck yeah! What does that look like? Well, humans are adaptable. They specialize. They're creative. That all gets expressed through sex, and that's beautiful. Since it depends entirely on the human, I'd rather not plant ideas in people's heads about what is and isn't sex, or what genres of sex are sinful, or what configurations are gross or doomed to failure or blah blah blah. And listen, sure sure, don't get me wrong, there are practical considerations. Sex certainly comes with risks, and requires judicious and educated use of safety devices and techniques, just like anything that exciting. But getting moralistic or legalistic about it doesn't strike me as particularly helpful. This brings me around to a big insight I had last year, but first some back story.
When I was growing up, folks still believed there was basically one correct way to be romantic. One man, one woman, married forever. Don't you dare look at photos of anybody else, let alone put your hands on them. But then check this out. I googled what percentage of married people ever have sex outside of marriage, and you know what it is for both genders? 70%! Which says to me that the paradigm... has issues. But when I was in my 20s, I still believed in that, so I tried to do it. But it became really obvious really quickly that I was bad at the whole fidelity aspect of marriage. I tried to repress myself, confess my sins, read the Bible, pray, all that good stuff I was promised would help me lock my eyes on exactly one Godly woman. It didn't work. So guess what. That woman, and later women, wouldn't you know it, but they became quite upset when I convinced them I was monogamous, and then I wasn't. The ol' bait and switch. I lied to myself, which helped me lie to them.
I'm a little embarrassed it took me so long to put words to it, but here's my insight. Rather than trying unsuccessfully to uphold an ideal that's unrealistic for me, I just go ahead and be myself, and I make sure everybody knows who I am, and then they can decide for themselves if they're into it. I've just described consent, basically. On the first date I say things like, "The trouble I've gotten into is sending signals that I want monogamy, when, boy, that's just not who I am as a person." That scares away all the wrong girls, which frankly, is most of them. But then you know who's left over? The right girls! And wow. I just get yelled at a lot less.
You see where I'm going with this? When we make people feel shame about nonsense like virginity or monogamy or homosexuality or whatever, we push them to be someone they aren't, and that messes with their relationships.
What else. My brother points out that nobody ever owes you sex, and boy do I agree with that. I like to come to that same conclusion from a different angle. If I walk into a room with 100 women roughly my age, I'm just making these numbers up, but about 5 will be into me. And I've learned a little something. The best sex in the world is with somebody who is genuinely excited to have it with you. I love this idea of enthusiastic consent. Silence isn't yes, and yes isn't heck yes! To my mind, the worst strategy is to walk into that room and hit on women in descending order of how hot I think they are. The best strategy is to flirt a lot and pay attention to which girls are sending signals. Start with the cute ones making eye contact, laughing at my jokes, opening up, and showing focused interest.
Women are complicated though in a very interesting way, and this is one of the only gender differences I hypothesize truly exists. Women will go back and forth in their heads about whether they want to have sex with you, even past the point of penetration. So she might say no at any point in the process, which can be surprising and frustrating, but that's all part of it.
So yeah, morally, nobody owes me sex, but also, reading and respecting whether or not she wants me is just good technique. Side note, pet theory, I think this is an easy thing to get wrong in the marriage model. I could see where promising never to bonk another might make you feel entitled. But another interesting thing that falls out of my model is, if you really want to have sex and you have a decent sized dating pool and you're willing to learn and adapt and approach it with an open mind that's not too hung up on ideas of what romance has to look like or one specific person (catches breath), you can absolutely find somebody. Isn't that freeing and terrifying? Welcome to humans.
Maybe the last thing I want to bring up is that I was one of the worst virgin shamers and it was my brother who pointed it out to me. I remain grateful to him for that. I realized it's no good making any consenting humans feel shame for doing it their own way. I think if I really want the people I love to have exactly the sort of human connections that work for THEM, making them feel bad for doing it different than ME is, frankly, stupid. That makes no sense. Do I want my brother to have my relationships? Of course not. I want him to have his own.
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